The Turmoil, a novel eBook

“What—­what—­” His
mouth could not do him the service he asked of it,
he was so frightened.

“Extry!” screamed a newsboy straight in
his face. “Young North Side millionaire
insuntly killed! Extry!”

“Not—­Jim!” said Sheridan.

Bibbs caught his father’s hand in his own.

“And you come to tell me that?”

Sheridan did not know what he said. But in those
first words and in the first anguish of the big, stricken
face Bibbs understood the unuttered cry of accusation:

“Why wasn’t it you?”

CHAPTER XII

Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the
cemetery, three days later, Bibbs unwillingly let
an old, old thought become definite in his mind:
the sickly brother had buried the strong brother,
and Bibbs wondered how many million times that had
happened since men first made a word to name the sons
of one mother. Almost literally he had buried
his strong brother, for Sheridan had gone to pieces
when he saw his dead son. He had nothing to help
him meet the shock, neither definite religion nor
“philosophy” definite or indefinite.
He could only beat his forehead and beg, over and over,
to be killed with an ax, while his wife was helpless
except to entreat him not to “take on,”
herself adding a continuous lamentation. Edith,
weeping, made truce with Sibyl and saw to it that
the mourning garments were beyond criticism.
Roscoe was dazed, and he shirked, justifying himself
curiously by saying he “never had any experience
in such matters.” So it was Bibbs, the
shy outsider, who became, during this dreadful little
time, the master of the house; for as strange a thing
as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death.
He met the relatives from out of town at the station;
he set the time for the funeral and the time for meals;
he selected the flowers and he selected Jim’s
coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other
things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights,
who lengthened the rites with a picturesque ceremony
of their own, and at first Bibbs wished to avoid this,
but upon reflection he offered no objection—­
he divined that the Knights and their service would
be not precisely a consolation, but a satisfaction
to his father. So the Knights led the procession,
with their band playing a dirge part of the long way
to the cemetery; and then turned back, after forming
in two lines, plumed hats sympathetically in hand,
to let the hearse and the carriages pass between.